Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride

Two contrasting photographs, the first taken in 1968 and the second in 2010.

As a schoolboy my friends and I would often jump the 73 bus from Penny Lane and head to town,after a Wimpy and going into Nems Records where they gave you albums to take into a small booth in which there was a turntable and a pair of headphones, after a few hours in the town we would head out and explore. I inveriably had a camera of sorts with me and on this partucular day we ended up at the Anglican Cathedral,I can now confess some 43 years later that we found an open door in the tower and climbed to the top via a vertical ladder, not allowed by any means but we weren't caught and got away with it.

The waste ground had only the remains of a childrens playground and this roundabout was all that was left.My friends on the roudabout Laurence and Paul struck this pose which summed up the decade.

There was talk for many years that the area was to be landscaped and grassed over to create a formal garden/park with the majestic cathedral as a backdrop.The second photograph shows the pace of progress, the university were given permission to erect student accommodation in front of the building and also some private houses were erected too.

It seems to me now that the park option was never considered and as "Money Talks" the  developers got their way, it would have been a wonderful vista and a great place to spend an afternoon with the sun over the Mersey and the sandstone glowing brightly as it catches the tower and the wings of the largest Anglican cathedral and church in the world.

Ah well, progress